3 Ways to Stop Feeling Overwhelmed

Today I was feeling totally overwhelmed.  I had stuff to do for work, food shopping, help assistant coach my daughter’s Destination Imagination team, and no matter where I looked in the house there was stuff that was half finished that needed to be completed RIGHT NOW.

So I took a nap.

ordinaryjoseph.blogspot.com
ordinaryjoseph.blogspot.com

Turns out that napping is actually a good thing to do in times of stress.  Who knew?  Here are some tips you might find useful if you too are feeling stressed out and overloaded.

3 Ways to Stop Feeling Overwhelmed

  1. Sleep.  (Already, I’m feeling calmer!) According to Elizabeth Grace Saunders, feeling tired leads to a sense of hopelessness.  “When you have enough sleep, you’ll feel better, handle stress better, make better decisions and work more effectively,” says Saunders. “Figure out whatever is holding you back from getting enough sleep and take care of that issue first. Once you start sleeping regularly, you can move on to the other items.”  (CBSnews.com:  4 Ways to Stop Feeling Overwhelmed)Exhausted
  2. Set a timer for 15 minutes.   This is a trick I use to clean my house when it’s so chaotic I don’t know where to begin.  (If you have children, pets or a husband, you know what I’m talking about.)  You’d be surprised how much you can get done in 15 minutes.  It’s a small enough increment of time that it seems doable, and not so long to suck up all your energy you need for other tasks.

    scattermom.com
    scattermom.com
  3. Divide tasks into Urgent, Important and General categories.  Not everything is an emergency.  Urgent items are stuff you absolutely need to get done today (think: work deadline or pay the mortgage on the due date.)  Important stuff needs to get done, but can be put off to a more convenient time, like food shopping.  General stuff includes reading emails, filing, and purging outgrown clothes from your kids’ dressers.  (It helps to use a timer on these general tasks…)

Also, it’s probably a good idea to take a deep breath and saying something calming to yourself, like “This too shall pass,”  or “Some day I will win the lottery and this will all seem funny to me.”

How about you?  What do you do to keep calm?

Lisa ;)

Sheslosingit.com (c) 2014 Lisa Traugott.  All rights reserved.  No portion of this blog, including any text, photographs, and artwork, may be reproduced or copied without written permission.

2 thoughts on “3 Ways to Stop Feeling Overwhelmed

  1. This past weekend I also found ways to stop feeling overwhelmed. The strategies I used was to sit on my porch (it’s Summer here now) and live in the moment by just admiring nature, listening to the birds and watch the sun set.
    Other things I did was to join my youngest with coloring and we visit museum sites as well.
    I am glad that you found ways to destress.

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